Marshmallow and Toothpick Shapes

Reid started preschool yesterday.

I prefer to only have my kids do one year of preschool the year before they start Kindergarten. I relish in being my children’s first teacher and having them at home, since they are this small only once.

Reid has been different. Not only will he miss the cut off for Kindergarten next year by two weeks (so he’s soooo ready for something but just barely not old enough), but any attempts to do “mommy school” with him has been a struggle to say the least. So, when by some miracle he made it into the only preschool I’ve ever really wanted him to go to (it’s our amazing university program with a crazy long waiting list), it felt like the right thing for him…and us.

Even though he’s in school, I still don’t want to give up on teaching him here and there myself. My goal is to make it as fun and pressure free as possible. He tends to balk at the slightest bit of pressure when it comes to me, so I’ve been trying to get creative (and patient!) to keep things positive.

This time, I plopped a fat new bag of mini marshmallows on the table, sat down, and started copying this fun pin…found here.

He refused to come do an “activity” with me when I asked him to, but once he observed what fun I was having, he hopped up to the table and joined right in.

I’m sure the promise of marshmallows to munch on didn’t hurt either. :)

We got to talk about shapes, and colors (thanks to the multi-colored toothpicks), and do lots and lots of counting.

I didn’t let him eat all of the marshmallows in one sitting, so we divided the marshmallows up into baggies for him and his brother to eat after school…which provided more counting opportunities.

It was fun, and I sneaked in some mommy school time with him. :)

We stuck with the 2D shapes this time, but I hope to try this again with Owen and try some 3D shapes. I love activities like this, that are so simple, fun, and open up so many avenues for learning.

I’m also hoping to sneak in more mommy school time with Reid. It’s going to be a challenge but incredibly worth it!

Thank you for sharing this activity. I graduated with my bachelors at the age of 48 (you are never too old) last December. My degree is Early Childhood Care and Education. So preschoolers are really close to my heart. I taught in a Head Start preschool for 10 years and loved it. We did a healthy cooking activity once a month in our class and the children loved it. It gets them active and is very hands on. They learn while creating and don’t even realize they are learning. We use to make traffic lights with round crackers. You can come up with different foods to match the colors. I would use cheese for the yellow light, cucumbers or pickles for green and pepperoni for the red. The children loved putting their lights together. You can talk about shapes, colors, spatial skills such as top, middle, and bottom. Also social studies by talking about transportation and what the purpose of lights are. Learning by eating is great.

I’ve always wanted to try those. Maybe we should!btw, I’m loving the gray table. It’s so cool for photos. I have a gray “painting” that I’ve been meaning to finish so sometimes I pull it out for photos but your table is sooo much better and cooler. I’m so glad you went for it!

I’m LOVING your pin tests! What a clever idea! This reminded me of the time I was a student teacher, and put my students into small groups to see who could make the biggest marshmallow toothpick structure. Thanks for the reminder, this would be the perfect and clean idea for my kiddos!!!

Jacob’s birthday is Sept. 3rd and the cut off is August 1st! I know they have to drawn a line somewhere, but it’s really hard for me to tell him that he can’t go to school because of the dates! So he’s going to have 2 years of Pre-k, but luckily, I got him into an awesome one at the church his grandparent’s attend. Montessori, even! :)

I’ll have to try the out the shapes with him, I know he’ll love it based on the marshmallows alone.

With my first child I was able to do more teaching stuff with him, but by the time the second one came along all of that time kind of dried up. Sadly we haven't been able to do as much with number two as we did with number one. I'm kind of glad they go do a good daycare on the days that I work. I know they are learning and it gets reinforced at home. I would love to have the space to find

If he's super ready, it might work to talk to your school about doing an assessment and maybe getting him in early, since he's so close! I know our school will do that. Sometimes parents will try put in kids that aren't really ready emotionally, but sometimes it can be better to put them in kindergarten a bit earlier than to have them bored in class and/or have to skip a grade later.

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